CHAPTER XV
THE VOICE FROM THE GROUP
"No one from the household is allowed through without an order!"
"You will, however, let me pass."
"Because you have a pretty face?" The sentinel at the great gateseparating the upper part of the Mount from the town, answered roughly."Not you, my girl, or--"
But she who importuned raised the sides of the ample linen head-dressand revealed fully her countenance.
"My Lady!" Half convinced, half incredulous, the soldier looked;stared; at features, familiar, yet seeming different, with therebellious golden hair smoothed down severely above; the figure garbedin a Norman peasant dress, made for a costume dance when the nobles andcourt ladies had visited the Mount.
"You do not doubt who I am?" Imperiously regarding him.
"No, my Lady; only--"
"Then open the gate!" she commanded.
The man pushed back the ponderous bolts; pressed outward the mass ofoak and iron, and, puzzled, surprised, watched the girl slip through.Of course it was none of his affair, my lady's caprice, and if shechose to go masquerading among the people on such a day, when all theidle vagabonds made pretext to visit the Mount, her right to do soremained unquestioned; but, as he closed the heavy door, he shook hishead. Think of the risk! Who knew what might happen in the event ofher identity being revealed to certain of those in that heterogeneousconcourse without? Even at the moment through an aperture forobservation in the framework to which he repaired upon adjusting thefastenings, he could see approaching a procession of noisy fanatics.
The apprehension of the soldier was, however, not shared by the girl,who, glad she had found a means to get away from the chillingatmosphere of her own world, experienced now only a sense of freedomand relief. In her tense mood, the din--the shouting and unwontedsounds--were not calculated to alarm; on the contrary, after theoppressive stillness in the great halls and chambers of the summit,they seemed welcome. Her pulses throbbed and her face still burnedwith the remembrance of the interview with her father, as she eyedunseeingly the approaching band, led by censer- and banner-bearers.
"_Vierge notre esperance--_" Caught up as they swept along, she foundherself without warning suddenly a part of that human stream. Anatural desire to get clear from the multitude led her at first tostruggle, but as well contend with the inevitable. Faces fierce,half-crazed, encompassed her; eyes that looked starved, spiritually andphysically, gleamed on every side. Held as in a vise, she soon ceasedto resist; suddenly deposited on a ledge, like a shell tossed up fromthe sea, she next became aware she was looking up toward a temporaryaltar, garish with bright colors.
"_Etends sur nous--_" Louder rose the voices; more uncontrollablebecame the demeanor of the people, and quickly, before the unveiling ofthe sacred relics had completely maddened them, she managed toextricate herself from the kneeling or prostrate throng; breathless,she fled the vicinity.
Down, down! Into the heart of the village; through tortuous footpaths,where the pandering, not pietistic, element held sway; where, insteadof shrines and altars, had been erected booths and stands before whichvendors of nondescript viands or poor trumpery vented their loquacityon the pilgrims:
"All hot! All hot!"
"_A la barque_! _A l'ecaille_!"
"_La vie_! Two drinks for a _liard_!"
"_Voila le plaisir des dames_!"
The Mount, in olden times a glorious and sacred place for royalpilgrimages, where kings came to pray and seek absolution, seemed nowmore mart than holy spot. But those whom the petty traders sought toentice--sullen-looking peasants, or poorly clad fishermen and theirfamilies--for the most part listened indifferently, or with stupidderision.
"Bah!" scoffed one of them, a woman dressed in worn-out costume ofinherited holiday finery. "Where think you we can get sous forgew-gaws?"
"Or full stomachs with empty pockets?" said another. "The foul fiendtake your Portugals!"
The nomadic merchants replied and a rough altercation seemed impending,when, pushing through the crowd, the girl hurried on.
Down, down, she continued; to the base of the rock where the sand'sshining surface had attracted and yet held many of the people. Thitherthey still continued to come--in bands; processions; little streamsthat, trickling in, mingled with and augmented the rabble. Anencampment for the hour--until the "_petite_" tide should break it up,and drive it piecemeal to the shore or up the sides of the Mount--itspread out and almost around the foundations of the great rock. Onlythe shadows it avoided--the chilling outlines of pinnacles and towers;the cold impress of the saint, holding close to the sunlit strand andbasking in its warmth.
Some, following the example of their sea-faring fellows, dughalf-heartedly in the sands in the hope of eking out the meager eveningmeal with a course, salt-flavored; others, abandoning themselves tolighter employment, made merry in heavy or riotous fashion, but theeffect of these holiday efforts was only depressing and incongruous.
"Won't you join?" Some one's arm abruptly seized my lady.
"No, no!"
Unceremoniously he still would have drawn her into the ring, but with asudden swift movement, she escaped from his grasp.
"My child!" The voice was that of a wolfish false friar who, seeingher pass quickly near by, broke off in threat, solicitation and appealfor sous, to intercept her. "Aren't you in a hurry, my child?"
"It may be," she answered steadily, with no effort to conceal heraversion at sight of the gleaming eyes and teeth. "Too much so, tospeak with you, who are no friar!"
"What mean you?" His expression, ingratiating before, had darkened,and from his mean eyes shot a malignant look; she met it with fearlessdisdain.
"That you make pretext of this holy day to rob the people--as if theyare not poor enough!"
"Ban you with bell, book and candle! Your tongue is too sharp, mygirl!" he snarled, but did not linger long, finding the flashingglance, the contemptuous mien, or the truth of her words, little to hisliking. That he profited not by the last, however, was soon evident,as with amulets and talismans for a bargain, again he moved among thecrowd, conjuring by a full calendar of saints, real and imaginary, andprofessing to excommunicate, in an execrable confusion of monkishgibberish, where the people could not, or would not, comply with hisdemands.
"So they _are_--poor enough!" Leaning on a stick, an aged fishwife whohad drawn near and overheard part of the dialogue between the thriftyrogue and the girl, now shook her withered head. "Yet still to becozened! Never too poor to be cozened!" she repeated in shrillfalsetto tones.
"And why," sharply my lady turned to the crone, "why are they so poor?The lands are rich--the soil fertile."
"Why?" more shrilly. "You must come from some far-off place not toknow. Why? Don't you, also, have to pay _metayage_ to some greatlord? And _banalite_ here, and _banalite_ there, until--"
"But surely, if you applied to your great lord, your Governor; if youtold him--"
"If we told him!" Brokenly the woman laughed. "Yes; yes; of course;if--"
"I don't understand," said the Governor's daughter coldly.
Muttering and chuckling, the woman did not seem to hear; had started tohobble on, when abruptly the girl stopped her.
"Where do you live?"
"There!" A claw-like finger pointed. "On the old Seigneur's lands--alittle distance from the woods--"
"The old Seigneur? You knew him?"
"Knew him! Who better?" The whitened head wagged. "And the BlackSeigneur? Wasn't he left, as a child, with me, when the old Seigneurwent to America? And," pursing her thin lips, "didn't I care for him,and bring him up as one of my own?"
"But I thought--I heard that he, the Black Seigneur, when a boy, livedin the woods."
"That," answered the old creature, "was after. After the years helived with us and shared our all! Not that we begrudged--no, no! Norhe! For once when I sent word, pleading our need, that we werestarving, he forgave--I mean, remembered me--all I h
ad done and," in awheedling voice, "sent money--money--"
"He did?" Swiftly the girl reached for her own purse, only to discovershe had forgotten to bring one. "But of course," in a tone ofdisappointment at her oversight, "he couldn't very well forget ordesert one who had so generously befriended him."
"There are those now among his friends he must needs desert," the cronecackled, wagging her head.
A shadow crossed the girl's brow. "Must needs?" she repeated.
"Aye, forsooth! His comrades--taken prisoners near the island ofCasque? His Excellency will hang them till they're dead--dead, likesome I've seen dangling from the branches in the wood. He, the BlackSeigneur, may wish to save them; but what can he do?"
"What, indeed?" The girl regarded the Mount almost bitterly. "It isimpregnable."
"Way there!" At that moment, a deep, strong voice from a little groupof people, moving toward them, interrupted.